Finding a business that has the potential to grow substantially is not easy, but it is possible if we look at a few key financial metrics. In a perfect world, we'd like to see a company investing more capital into its business and ideally the returns earned from that capital are also increasing. Basically this means that a company has profitable initiatives that it can continue to reinvest in, which is a trait of a compounding machine. Having said that, while the ROCE is currently high for Mader Group (ASX:MAD), we aren't jumping out of our chairs because returns are decreasing.

Understanding Return On Capital Employed (ROCE)

If you haven't worked with ROCE before, it measures the 'return' (pre-tax profit) a company generates from capital employed in its business. The formula for this calculation on Mader Group is:

Return on Capital Employed = Earnings Before Interest and Tax (EBIT) ÷ (Total Assets - Current Liabilities)

0.32 = AU$74m ÷ (AU$340m - AU$108m) (Based on the trailing twelve months to December 2024).

Therefore, Mader Group has an ROCE of 32%. That's a fantastic return and not only that, it outpaces the average of 11% earned by companies in a similar industry.

View our latest analysis for Mader Group

In the above chart we have measured Mader Group's prior ROCE against its prior performance, but the future is arguably more important. If you'd like to see what analysts are forecasting going forward, you should check out our free analyst report for Mader Group .

So How Is Mader Group's ROCE Trending?

In terms of Mader Group's historical ROCE movements, the trend isn't fantastic. While it's comforting that the ROCE is high, five years ago it was 41%. However, given capital employed and revenue have both increased it appears that the business is currently pursuing growth, at the consequence of short term returns. If these investments prove successful, this can bode very well for long term stock performance.

On a side note, Mader Group has done well to pay down its current liabilities to 32% of total assets. So we could link some of this to the decrease in ROCE. What's more, this can reduce some aspects of risk to the business because now the company's suppliers or short-term creditors are funding less of its operations. Some would claim this reduces the business' efficiency at generating ROCE since it is now funding more of the operations with its own money.

The Bottom Line On Mader Group's ROCE

Even though returns on capital have fallen in the short term, we find it promising that revenue and capital employed have both increased for Mader Group. And long term investors must be optimistic going forward because the stock has returned a huge 742% to shareholders in the last five years. So while investors seem to be recognizing these promising trends, we would look further into this stock to make sure the other metrics justify the positive view.

If you want to continue researching Mader Group, you might be interested to know about the 1 warning sign that our analysis has discovered.

If you want to search for more stocks that have been earning high returns, check out this free list of stocks with solid balance sheets that are also earning high returns on equity.

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This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.